an island of about six acres in extent situated in the small Lake of Monteith, about six miles north of Kippen.  In 1547, when six years old, she was sent to France in a Flemish ship from Dumbarton, and in the following year she was married to the Dauphin of France, afterwards King Francis II, who died in the year 1560.  Afterwards she returned to Scotland and went to Stirling Castle, where she met her cousin Lord Darnley and was married to him at Holyrood in 1565, her son being born in 1566.  Troubles, however, soon arose, and for a short time she was made a prisoner and placed in the Castle of Loch Leven, from which she escaped with the intention of going to Dumbarton Castle for safety.  Her army under the Earl of Argyll accompanied her, but on the way they met an opposing army commanded by the Regent Murray, who defeated her army, and Queen Mary fled to England.  Here she again became a prisoner and was placed in various castles for the long period of nineteen years, first in one and then in another, with a view probably to preventing her being rescued by her friends; and finally she was beheaded in 1587 in the forty-eighth year of her age at Fotheringay Castle in Northamptonshire, by command of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth.

Her son James VI of Scotland, who subsequently became James I of England, was baptised in the Royal Chapel at Stirling Castle in 1566, and in 1567, when he was only about thirteen months old, was crowned in the parish church at Stirling, his mother Queen Mary having been forced to abdicate in favour of her son.  The great Puritan divine John Knox preached the Coronation sermon on that occasion, and the young king was educated until he was thirteen years of age by George Buchanan, the celebrated scholar and historian, in the castle, where his class-room is still to be seen.  He succeeded to the English throne on the death of Queen Elizabeth, and was crowned as King James I of England in the year 1603.

Leaving Kippen, we passed through Gargunnock, with the extraordinary windings of the River Forth to our left, and arrived at Stirling at 5.15 p.m., where at the post-office we found a host of letters waiting our arrival and at the railway-station a welcome change of clothing from home.

(Distance walked twenty-two miles.)

Friday, October 6th.

Stirling is one of the most attractive towns in Scotland, and we could not resist staying there awhile to explore it.  It is the “key to the Highlands,” and one of the oldest of the Royal burghs.  It was a place of some importance in the time of the Romans, as it stood between the two great Firths of the Clyde and the Forth, where the Island of Britain is at its narrowest.  The first Roman wall was built between the Forth and the Clyde, and the Second Roman Legion was stationed at Stirling.  According to an old inscription on a stone near the Ballengeich road, they kept a watch there day and night, and in A.D. 81 a great battle was fought near by against